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Published: August 13th 2007
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Train graveyard
Sad times for the trains, but they are terribly fun to climb on Well, I write this entry from the comfort of my own house back in the Burgh. 307 days away, 10,000 miles travelled by air, 343 hours spent on a bus, 52.5 hours on boats, 23 books, 1 broken bone and 106 different beds with another 11 nights spent on buses or in bus stations and I'm home.
But the story is not yet complete....
Uyani. Booked on a tour very easily that departed in just a few hours. We were accompanying a Bolivian family of 5, on holiday together. 4 of them spoke English - which was handy and gave us a nice break from thinking in Spanish for a while. Unfortunately, Angela informed them that she was trying to improve her Spanish, so they refused to speak in any English and it was back to the Spanish, where we had some very interesting conversations about ghosts, insects, tics and leeches. We saw the salt plains which are amazing, fish island (which sooo doesn't resemble a fish in any way, but is covered in huge cacti, some of which are 1243 years old, calculated by the fact that it is 1243 cm tall and they grow at 1 cm
My little friends
Nearly worked, but Angela's not quite got the hang of lining them up a year - genius). A llama spat on the wee girl, Melissa, we were with, which needless to say, made my trip. We were entertained by wee sprogs playing typical music in the evenings for their pocket-money I guess, and read by candlelight. Warmed up our tootsies in hot springs, saw geysers, multicoloured lakes and even skated on the green one (yes, it was chilly - we had hot water bottles).
Got dropped off after tearful farewells to the family in the Atacama desert in Chile. We scooted through here after seeing some rocks to Peru where we enjoyed cake at a convent made by nuns (tasted heavenly - mwah ha ha...sorry), went to see the Nazca lines in er...Nazca, which were again fantastic, but the plane ride to see them made me way pukey so I had to recover on a bench in the centre of town after. Ice cream helped and I was well enough to see mummies a few kilometres away, which really, really creeped me out. Eugh!
Then Cusco on an overnight bus sat next to a lovely Peruvian woman who invited us to stay at her house - unfortunately she lived up north
Machu Pi pi pi...
Machu po po po, machu chu chu chu, machu pi po chu and we weren't heading that way, but I felt I did my bit for international relations. In Cusco we were staying in a 15 person dorm. Hell. Nae jokes. 1 chap muttered and whimpered all night long, people arrived and left at all hours for trips, parties etc. It's a very pretty city, but because of all the tourists, you're constantly harassed to buy tours, postcards, have your picture taken with a llama etc. It gets a little wearing. We hung around for the independence day where there's big parades in the main plaza. It's all a bit exciting and kids are given smelling salts whilst marching to stop them fainting. Then it was time for our Inca Trail - not THE Inca Trail, but the one next door to it, so to speak.
1st day: Bus to the start was held up by a landslide. No problem, off we get and walk for 30 mins over it. In-bus bickering on the other side delayed our departure for 3 hours. Then cycle down a road reminiscent of Death Road. The bikes were pretty poor though; 2 flat tyres, 1 set of failed brakes, 1 wonky seat, 1 snapped chain
Clever Incas
They made rock into the same shape as the mountains and 1 that kept coming off, combined with our tardiness, and it got dark. Bikes with no lights, gravel roads and 2 torches between 6 does not total up to a fun time. I fell off twice adding to my scars - this means that if I get a scar from a bike in Asia and Antarctica at any point, I'll have 1 from every continent...cool huh?!
Next day no bikes (thank God), just a 35 km walk, which was hard going, but spectacular and ended with more hot springs. Similar pattern the next day, but was only 18km so we didn't deserve hot springs. There was a mix up with the train ticket reservations to get us back to Cusco from Aqua Calientes, and turned out I was the only one with a ticket and that there were no more. Ha ha. Our guide managed to get some, but we had to pay and they were on a different train. Hmmm. Did some fluttering at the train dude and got it sorted though. I'd ripped my trousers on the bike the 1st day, so was plodding around town in my pj's when our guide decided it was time
We even found an inca
Apparently they come out of hiding on the birthday of Peru to go party. Anyway, we had to get up a 4am the next day for Machu Pichu, we're in a discotech and I'm in my pyjamas. Perfectly normal. 4am came around oh so quickly and we trudged up a gazillion stairs to get to the sight for the sun illumination. It was pretty groovy, maybe a bit overrated if I'm totally honest. This may be something to do with the queue to get in a 6 am that is longer than the queue for Nemesis at Alton Towers on a bank holiday weekend. We sunbathed once we got in though.
Got a train-bus combo to Cusco, then a night bus to Lima, which was the last stop on the trip. Spent a long time weighing bags and deciding exactly how many jumpers I could wear without looking like the Michelin man or a terrorist and we were off. 3 planes later, 1 guitar less (because it got left in Madrid, then mysteriously smashed) and we were back in the Burgh. I surprised my rents at their respective works. Mum cried, screamed and sobbed in the middle of John Lewis after asking me if I was being served and not
recognising me for a good wee while, causing more than one of her co-workers and customers to well up. Dad stood there in stunned silence until I felt the need to tell him who I was in case he'd forgotton and was trying to figure out who I reminded him of.
Now it feels like I've never been away. 307 days away, 10,000 miles travelled by air, 343 hours spent on a bus, 52.5 hours on boats, 23 books, 1 broken bone and 106 different beds with another 11 nights spent on buses or in bus stations and the story is now complete. So, all I'm left to say is ta ra and that it's been emotional. Smoooches to y'all!
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